Michael; which, especially the first, are, to my taste, excellent. I have never been so much affected, and so well, as by some passages there. ་་ "We sha To Coleridge he writes less ardently, August 4, 1802: probably agree altogether some day upon Wordsworth's Lyrical Poems. Does he not associate more feeling with particular phrases, and you also with him than those phrases can convey to any one else? This I suspect. THE WHITE DOE In a letter to Scott, February 11, 1808, Southey speaks of the White Doe of Rylstone. "Wordsworth has completed a most masterly poem upon the fate of the Nortons; two or three lines in the old Ballad of the Rising of the North gave him the hint. The story affected me more deeply than I wish to be affected; younger readers, however, will not object to the depth of the distress, and nothing was ever more ably treated. WORDSWORTH'S POEMS REVIEWED IN THE EDINBURGH he. {་ Scott had written to Southey, November 1807, calling his attention to a harsh review of Wordsworth in the Edinburgh. "Jeffrey gives the sonnets as much praise as he usually does to anybody," says "I made him admire the song of Lord Clifford's minstrel, which I like exceedingly myself, but many of Wordsworth's lesser poems are caviare, not only to the multitude but to all who judge of poetry by the established rules of criticism. Some of them, I can safely say, I like the better for these aberrations; in others they get beyond me at any rate they ought to have been more cauti ously hazarded." To this letter Southey replies, December 8, 1807: "The reviewal of Wordsworth I am not likely to see, the Edinburgh very rarely lying in my way. My own notions respecting the book agree in the main with yours, though I may probably go a step farther than you in admiration. There are certainly some pieces there which are good for nothing (none, however which a bad poet could have written), and very many which it was highly injudicious to publish. That song to Lord Clifford, which you particularise, is truly a noble poem. The Ode upon Pre-existence is a dark subject darkly handled. Caleridge is the only man who could make such a subject luminous. The Leechgatherer is one of my favorites; there he has caught Spenser's manner, and, in many of the better poemets, has equally caught the best manner of Wither, who, with all his long fits of dullness and prosing, had the heart and soul of a poet in him. The sonnets are in a grand style. ་ In his reviewal of Wordsworth's two volumes which appeared in volume XI. of the Edinburgh Jeffrey begins by stating that the Lyrical Ballads were deservedly popular but that the present collection is rendered less interesting because more "strongly marked" by "the peculiarities" of "the fraternity" than any former publication of the author. The critic maintains that The critic maintains that the aim of all poetry is to interest the reader by means of three things · 1. the excitement of passion or emotion; 2. the stimulation of imagination; and 3. the character of the diction. The peculiarities of diction alone, he declares, are enough to make these poems no more nor less than ridiculous. He proceeds to hold up as illustrations of his criticis extracts from the ode to the Daisy, Louisa, The Redbreast, the Butterfly, etc. He allows that The Character of the Happy Warrier contains some manly lines", but concerning Resolution and Independence he defies "the bitterest enemy of Mr. W. to produce anything at all parallel" to it. The critic brands The Yarrow Unvisite a "tedious, affected performance" and speaks of Foresight as the "quintessence of unmeaningness. The Restoration of Lord Clifford he says is a very different strain of poetry. Here, according to Jeffrey, the author was led to "throw aside his own babyish incident: and fantastical sensibilities". In the sonnets, the reviewer maintains, the poet "escapes from the trammels of his own unfortunate system" by imitating Milton. In consequence, says he the sonnets of Wordsworth are as superior to his other poems as those of Milton are to the productions of his successor. The critic closes his article with the hope that the manifest consequences of Wordsworth's violation of all the established laws of poetry may act as a wholesome warning to other poets, lest they, following in his footsteps, should suffer from the resulting unpopularity and censure. WORDSWORTH'S But this expectation, expressed so fervently by Mr. Jeffrey was evidently not gratified if we may judge by the following extract from Southey's letter to George Tickner in reference to Wordsworth's influence upon younger writers. "Every year shows more and more, "says he, "how strongly his poetry has leavened the rising generation. Your mocking bird is said to improve the strain which he imitates; this is not the case with ours. BYRON A Though, as has been said before, Southey disapproved most vigorously of the "immorality" of Lord Byron's verse, he was sound enough critic to realize the young man's genius. very severe personal conflict, in which, through the periodicals and otherwise, harsh words were uttered on both sides was bound to tinge the clarity of vision and warp the poets' critical perspective in regard to one another. We shall however let the extracts from letters which deal with literary matters only speak for themselves. ODE TO NA- Southey writes to Neville White, April 29, 1814, thanking him for Lord Byron's Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte, ་་ ...there is in it, says he, "as in all his poems, great life, spirit and originality, though the meaning is not always brought out with sufficient perspicuity. BYRON "A fashion of poetry has been imported", he writes to Landor in 1820, "which has had a great run, and is in a fair way of being worn out. It is of Italian growth, an adaptation of the manner of Pulci, Berni, and Ariosto in his sportive mood. Frere began it. |